Tag Archives: Blossom Dearie

Singers who perform in public — as they must — have singular obstacles to face in performance. Even though the ringing cash register is now a museum piece, there are so many extraneous sounds to surmount even when the audience is properly quiet and (imagine this!) everyone’s smartphone is shut off. Dishes and glasses clink; the waitstaff murmurs details of the specials, offers a dessert menu, presents the bill. The presumed answer to this is amplification, which can make a quiet sound audible at the back of the room, but in the process coarsens every nuance.

A CD session recorded in a studio has its own set of obstacles: the creative artist may be restricted to one small space, may be burdened with headphones and be banished into a booth . . . but we don’t see these travails, and the sound we hear through our speakers is a kinder representation of the human voice.

Hence, this delightful surprise (recorded by Malcolm Addey, so you can imagine the clear, accurate sound) in 2015:

In case you can’t read the back cover, the songs are I Walk a Little Faster / Wouldn’t It Be Loverly / Feel Like Makin’ Love / Lets Go Live In a Lighthouse / Cycling Along With You / Inside a Silent Tear / My Blue Heaven / A O Zora / You Turned the Tables On Me / Fly Me To The Moon / You Wanna Bet / The Brooklyn Bridge / The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

And the Orchestra with Vocal Refrain is Daryl, piano and vocals, with Harvie S, string bass, on tracks 2 and 10. It’s a delightfully old-fashioned CD: twelve tracks, fifty minutes, but no need to turn it over.

From the start, it’s a wonderful chance to hear Daryl — “her ownself” — as we might say in the Middle West a century ago. She is of course her own splendid accompanist, and her two selves never get in each other’s way. And I would direct some pianists who revere Tatum as their model to her spare, pointed accompaniment.

Her voice is the true delight here. Daryl sounds so much like herself, and is I think instantly recognizable, although one may call to mind Mildred Bailey, Blossom Dearie, and Dave Frishberg as musical colleagues and inspirations. I think she’s been undervalued because of what sounds (to the casual listener) like girlish charm, a high sweet voice with a conversational, sometimes wry delivery. But once the listener is into this CD for more than a chorus, the absence of other instrumentalists allows us to hear emotional depth beneath the apparent light-heartedness. This isn’t to say that the disc veers towards the dark or maudlin, but there is a true adult sensibility that makes even the most familiar material shine as if beautifully polished and lit. And even if you think you know how Daryl sings and plays, I submit that this CD is her masterpiece to date, sending us gentle immediacy of the most rare kind.

It’s a wonderful one-woman show, with nothing to excess, and a CD I’d like to send to many singers to show ’em how it can be done.

Matters of finance! If you send Daryl an email here, and say the magic words, “I’d like to buy MY BLUE HEAVEN,” her staff will help you do just that. You can also ask for an autographed copy. For now, checks only: $20 plus $ for shipping. You can also browse around her site to learn about upcoming gigs, to read her biography, see pictures, and more. I’m amused and pleased that four of the five videos are mine.

These performances were created at the Whiskey Lounge in Evanston, Illinois, in 2014 and this year.

Petra has a wonderfully intimate style, paying serious atttention to the words as well as the melody floating alongside. For those accustomed to high drama, to singers who show off years of voice lessons, she may at first sound quietly conversational. But that’s a wonderful secret: listening to her, we are encouraged to lean forward, to focus on the secrets she has to share. To me, she embodies Whitman’s words in SONG OF MYSELF: “I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.” In these performances, Petra is given loving comradeship (too rich to be “accompaniment”) by guitarist Andy Brown, by string bassist Joe POlicastro — quietly eloquent tellers of truths who don’t say a word.

Judy Roberts, who knows the mystical art of jazz singing, says of Petra: As a jazz singer, Petra’s unique and expressive phrasing gives her an instantly identifiable sound, and sets her happily apart from the crowd. Within one bar, you know it’s her, and you want to hear more! Much of Petra’s “own voice” comes from her intrinsically pure vision of how to sing lyrics – how to “speak” them, while choosing the perfect notes and length of phrase to convey meaning and musicality. Her improvisational excursions on the melody are born of a true jazz stylist, one with sophisticated taste and a genuine respect for the material. Petra lets us in on a candid and intimate view of her emotions, while always maintaining a sense of vivacious hopefulness. Sensuous, winsome and adorably hip, Petra’s delectable delivery of songs brings us the tantalizing flavors of Astrud Gilberto and Blossom Dearie in a young and appealing new voice.

Here’sPetra’s webpage, and her YouTube channelwith more performance videos, including more from her tribute to Blossom.

I don’t know if everything happens for a reason, or that the cosmos is a series of accidents, some dreadful, some blissful. But I can report on a happy encounter at the always-rewarding jazz club Mezzrowon West Tenth Street earlier this summer, when a nicely-dressed cheerful couple sat down next to me. We began to speak (like my late father, I am not reticent when the mood seems right) and I met Judy and Alan Wexler. I’d not encountered Judy in my California travels, but she told me she was a jazz singer; soon this CD arrived in the mail:

I wouldn’t be writing these words were I not seriously impressed.

WHAT I SEE isn’t a brand-new disc: Judy and her wonderful musicians recorded it in 2013, but all that means is that I came late to the party. (It’s her third disc for JazzedMedia, with good sound and liner notes.) Her instrumental crew is Jeff Colella, piano; Larry Koonse, guitar, ukulele; Chris Colangelo, string bass; Steve Hass, drums; Ron Stout, flugelhorn, trumpet; Bob Sheppard, bass clarinet, also flute; Scott Whitfield, trombone; Billy Hulting, percussion.

The songs were not all familiar to me, but I was pleased and impressed with the breadth of Judy’s repertoire and the light-hearted conviction she brings to her material: a few classics associated with Louis, Billie, and Blossom, alongside lesser-known delights by King Pleasure (his lyrics to a Stan Getz solo), Benny Carter, Dory and Andre Previn, John Williams and Johnny Mercer, and songwriters new to me: TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY / THE MOON IS MADE OF GOLD / CONVINCE ME / THEY SAY IT’S SPRING / A CERTAIN SADNESS / THE LONG GOODBYE / JUST FOR NOW / FOLLOW / ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE / A KISS TO BUILD A DREAM ON / LAUGHING AT LIFE.

Before I begin to write about Judy’s singing style, perhaps you should hear her for yourself: one of the songs on this disc:

The first thing I note is Judy’s distinctive — and pleasing — voice. She has a beautiful technique but one is never drawn to pure vocal effects; rather, she puts herself at the service of the song. I’d call her vocal timbre bittersweet, which fits the material — the voice of someone essentially romantic who knows that it’s necessary to look all four ways before crossing the street. You wouldn’t mistake herself for another singer, which is a great thing. She neatly balances emotional intensity and a swinging ease. Her music woos; it doesn’t insist. On other performances, such as TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY, her improvising skills are even more gratifyingly evident: she sings three choruses and her elastic variations from chorus to chorus are never stark — she never obliterates the composer’s intent — but one delights in her playfulness. She sings with an irresistible conversational ease, and on some songs I feel as if she is wryly smiling. That’s very good medicine for us in this century.

Here’s another:

Judy Wexler does everything right: she sings rather than dramatizes, she knows how to swing, she respects the melody and the words, and you know it’s her. What more could anyone want? (Nothing, except perhaps a new CD to listen to.)

See what happens when you go to the best jazz clubs and strike up conversations? Your life is enriched.

At the end of their gorgeous Rodgers and Hart mini-concert at Mezzrow on March 17, 2015, Hilary Gardner and Ehud Asherie, those rebels, decided to “go rogue,” and do a song outside the R&H canon. Luckily for us, their choice was the lovely THEY SAY IT’S SPRING, by Bob Haymes and Marty Clarke, made famous by the ethereal Blossom Dearie.

The snow in New York seems at last to have melted. Warmer weather makes everyone a little more amorous. Being able to put one’s snow shovel and heavy boots away is positively erotic. One thinks of lighter clothing with eagerness, and the possibility of being warm in the breeze . . . I’ll stop before I levitate.

The song is just right for the times, and it’s such a lovely performance too:

It’s a performance I want to hear over and over, which for me is the only real endorsement: art that doesn’t grow stale or give up all its secrets at once.

If you’ve missed the two songs I’ve posted from their Rodgers and Hart portion, here and here they are. I will have more from Hilary and Ehud and Larry and Dick for you in future.

I am delighted to introduce the fine singer Hetty Kate. To those who already know her, let this be a repeat embrace and celebration. Hetty does all the right things, without straining or undue drama. Her voice is clear and penetrating; her diction beautiful without being “learned” (she has a conversational ease); she swings; she subtly but affectingly improvises; she understand the lyrics; she embellishes and ornaments but never obliterates the melody. She respects the great singers of the past and present but never climbs in to the tomb and closes the door.

I delight in the two new CDs she has presented to us, in her sweet light-hearted approach. When she decides to snap out a lyric, the results are explosively good (hear her FROST ON THE MOON). She sounds as if she is merely singing the song, but we know that such casualness is true art.

Hetty is international in the best way: based in Melbourne, Australia, she recorded one CD on a New York City trip — enjoying the company of fine local musicians including Gordon Webster, piano; Dan Levinson, reeds; Mike Davis, trumpet, Cassidy Holden, guitar (now of New Orleans, but I knew him first as a string bassist with the Cangelosi Cards), Kevin Congleton, drums; Rob Adkins, string bass; Joseph Wiggan, tap dancing (wonderfully on Shoo Fly Pie); Adrien Chevalier, violin (Besame Mucho); Adam Brisbin, guitar; Evan Arntzen, clarinet; and a quartet of additional horns on the final track to make a rocking big band, Nadje Noordhuis, Jay Rattman, Michael Webster, Mike Fahie. The truly internationaltrombonist Shannon Barnett (Australia / New York / Germany) also pays a call. The result is irresistible, one of those CDs I wanted to play again right away as soon as it ended.

The CD is called GORDON WEBSTER MEETS HETTY KATE, and the equality of the title is mirrored in the music, with a nice balance between singer and band. The soloists tell us stories; Gordon’s wonderfully off-center piano is always a deep pleasure, and the sound — thanks to Michael Perez-Cisneros — is rich, exquisite.

Two songs were unfamiliar charmers, so I asked her about their origins. Here’s what Hetty wrote:

I first heard Peek-A-Boo on a .. wait for it.. Dove advertisement (probably on You Tube), where they’d used the song as the soundtrack to a story about how women are always so self conscious about their looks, and don’t like being photographed – but when they are children they have no shame about this and just dance and ham for the camera.. a little message about trying to be confident and see the beauty in us all! So the song was a cute one.. I fell immediately in love with it and with some research found the vocalist, Rose Murphy, the “chee chee girl” and also added her other famous song ‘Busy Line’ to the album. She was quite an extraordinary performer and pianist, and now I’m a big fan.

There are so many wonderful singers who don’t get much of a ‘look in’ because of Ella / Billie / Peggy / Anita and so forth – I feel that not only am I getting a benefit from discovering these other singers, but their memory can be kept alive a little too! Audrey Morris sang ‘How D’Ya Like To Love Me’ and she was an extraordinary talent as well (Bob Hope also famously sang that song) Sweet Lover and I Wanna Be Around were given to me on a mix tape by a good friend with a Blossom Dearie obsession and her approach to two rather evil songs was of course cute as a button – at the time I was going through some romantic challenges of my own, and I love to sing about the darker side of love as well as its light and sparkling hopefulness!

There’s Frost On The Moon was also given to me — Chick Webb’s band with Ella Fitzgerald (very young) and I believe Louis Jordan – and again, the lyrics were an immediate drawcard as well as the melody. The band in the studio had a great time with this one! I think it’s our favourite!

A lot of my family are writers, and as well as being drawn to the melody of a tune, I am always entranced by a clever turn of phrase, and with this album being able to match clever songs with some great dance tempos and arrangements by Gordon I was in heaven!!

Had Hetty recorded only this CD, I would be heralding her as a reassuringly professional new talent. But there’s more. DIM ALL THE LIGHTS is an entrancing collection of “vintage love songs” associated with Peggy Lee, June Christy, and Julie London: The Thrill Is Gone / In the Still of the Night / Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered / Answer Me, My Love / Why Don’t You Do Right? / Cry Me A River / Something Cool / Wives and Lovers / I Get Along Without You Very Well. Hetty is accompanied by a spare but beautiful quartet of Sam Keevers, piano; James Sherlock, guitar; Ben Robertson, string bass; Danny Farugia, drums.

The temptation for a singer, choosing these songs so strongly associated with these majestic artists, would be either to copy or to go in the other direction — vary the tempo, add odd rhythmic backgrounds, and the like. Hetty does neither: I am sure that the voices of the Great Foremothers are echoing in her head, but she treats each song as its own new script, and takes her time, inventing a new, lifelike way to sing it. No maudlin swooning, no pounding drums, no melodramatic rubato. Just effective singing: I’d put her version of BEWITCHED, BOTHERED, and BEWILDERED up against anyone’s. Understated, apparently cool, but with real passion coming through.

I believe Hetty has been singing professionally only since 2006, but she is a real treasure. No fakery — no little-girl cute, no look-at-me-I’m-so-hip / punk / sexy here at all. Just good music, intelligently interpreted and always swinging. And don’t let the gorgeous cover shot prejudice you against the elegant Ms. Kate: her CDs are about her voice, not her hair or her beautiful dress.

Here is Hetty’s Facebook page, and hereis the website for the CD with Gordon. Both discs are on iTunes. Visit hereand enjoy one-minute sound bites; visit the ABC site to purchase DIM ALL THE LIGHTS, and here to purchase the CD with Gordon — which is also available at CDBaby. (I know — life is complicated, especially for those of us used to dropping in at our local record stores and coming home with some new or old treasure. But Hetty’s CDs are worth the digging.)

It’s a critical commonplace to welcome the new artist at the start of “a brilliant career” to come. In Hetty Kate’s case, she is already singing brilliantly — a young artist with a mature, engaging sensibility.

When Wesla Whitfield and her husband, pianist Mike Greensill, take the stage, lovely subtle music always results. It happened last September 2013 at “Jazz at Chautauqua” (now known as the Allegheny Jazz Party) — with empathic assistance from Howard Alden, guitar; Harry Allen, tenor saxophone; Kerry Lewis, string bass. Welcome them and the beauty that they bring.

Mike begins by himself, with IT’S YOU OR NO ONE

Wesla joins in for A SAILBOAT IN THE MOONLIGHT

Kern’s sly, chipper NOBODY ELSE BUT ME

Neither Les Paul nor Mary Ford, but the question remains: HOW HIGH THE MOON?

I first encountered Mimi Terris late in 2008, a sweetly humble young singer who joined Tamar Korn and the Cangelosi Cards at the Lower East Side music spot Banjo Jim’s. With Naomi Uyama, the three songbirds stood out on the sidewalk on a cold night and serenaded me, Jim and Grace Balantic with an a cappella Boswell Sisters chorus. It might have been SHOUT, SISTER, SHOUT, and we were thrilled. Tamar, Mimi, and Naomi are immortalized on a few videos on YouTube, and the EP CD of “The Three Diamonds”.

Now, Mimi has released her debut CD: it is just wonderful throughout. It’s not simply the winning purity of her voice; it’s the depth of her emotions and the wide range of her musical affections — from gutty Bessie Smith to floating sweet lyricisms. She can be as light as Beverly Kenney or Blossom Dearie, but she isn’t limited by any one approach. Mimi is classically trained, but she doesn’t sound like Helen Traubel “trying to swing.” Swing comes naturally to her, but so does beautiful enunciation, convincing phrasing, a deep love of both the original melody and the lyrics.

Here she is, with friends, deep in the purple dusk of twilight time:

The CD, THEY SAY ITS SPRING, is just as delicious. On it, Mimi is joined by pianist Gordon Webster and bassist Cassidy Holden with visits from guitarist Jacob Fischer and trumpeter Peter Marrott on THEY SAY IT’S SPRING / WEST END BLUES / EN SADAN NATT SOM DENNA (an instantly memorable Swedish pop song from the Thirties) / IT WON’T BE YOU / LILAC WINE / I GOT IT BAD / ROCKIN’ CHAIR / LOVER, COME BACK TO ME / STAR DUST / ALICE.

Listening to it, a dozen times, I thought of Eddie Condon’s praise of Lee Wiley: “She just sings the melody. No tricks.” But Mimi’s delicate, reverberating art — deeply simple — is even better than the absence of melodrama. Although young, she sounds like a mature artist, offering her love of the songs to us.

Mimi’s Facebook page is here; her website is here; to hear music samples or download the CD, visit here.